Athens seeks air defense system like Iron Dome
The reference on Wednesday by Defense Minister Nikos Dendias to the need for a protective anti-aircraft system brought back to the fore a debate which has being continuing at the level of the country’s military leadership over the last few years – long before the demonstration of Israel’s capabilities against enemy missiles and rockets.
“The nation must shield itself… Examining the conflict in Ukraine, we have concluded that it is imperative to construct an anti-aircraft and anti-drone system,” Dendias told Skai TV, announcing plans to develop an air defense system inspired by Israel’s sophisticated Iron Dome, aimed at safeguarding the country against airborne threats.
Turkey has a very large number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of various categories. These UAVs pose a serious threat to the Hellenic Armed Forces. A number of them have been used in recent conflicts, such as in Libya, Ukraine and Azerbaijan, with the Turks having incorporated the lessons learned from their operational use.
There are currently two types of systems in operation in Greece. One is the anti-aircraft defense system for countering and neutralizing enemy aircraft, ballistic missiles and impact missiles, depending on their capabilities and technical characteristics.
It consists of the interceptor aircraft of the Hellenic Tactical Air Force Headquarters, S-300 missiles, the Patriot, HAWK, Crotale, Tor-M1, Osa-AK systems and Stinger man-portable air-defense systems.
The other is a non-mobile (soft-kill) system against UAVs, capable of tracking targets (up to hundreds of kilometers) including jammers for their electronic neutralization, and an integrated Global Positioning System (GPS).
There are also capabilities to jam the satellite communication and navigation systems of UAVs. There are plans to upgrade this system to acquire kinetic capabilities to attack and shoot down enemy UAVs (hard-kill).
Dendias implied that in the coming years, there will be an attempt to create a unified air defense system to interconnect the two systems.
